U.S. to beef up missile defense against N. Korea

FILE - In this March 1, 2013 file photo, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel speaks during a news conference at the Pentagon. Hagel plans to announce Friday that the Obama administration has decided to add 14 interceptors on the West Coast to the U.S.-based missile defense system. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

The Pentagon announced yesterday it will spend $1 billion to add 14 interceptors to an Alaska-based missile defense system, responding to what it called faster-than-anticipated North Korean progress on nuclear weapons and missiles.

In announcing the decision, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said he is determined to protect the U.S. homeland and stay ahead of a worrisome North Korean missile threat. He acknowledged that the interceptors already in place to defend against potential North Korean missile strikes have had poor test performances.

“We will strengthen our homeland defense, maintain our commitments to our allies and partners and make clear to the world that the United States stands firm against aggression,” Hagel told a Pentagon news conference.

He said the 14 additional interceptors will be installed at Fort Greely, Alaska, where 26 already stand in underground silos, connected to communications systems and operated by soldiers at Greely and at Colorado Springs, Colo. The interceptors are designed to lift out of their silos, soar beyond the atmosphere and deploy a “kill vehicle” that can lock onto a targeted warhead and, by ramming into it at high speed, obliterate it.

Hagel also cited a previously announced Pentagon plan to place an additional radar in Japan to provide early warning of a North Korean missile launch and to assist in tracking its flight path.

A portion of the $1 billion cost of the expanded system at Fort Greely will come from scrapping the final phase of a missile defense system the U.S. is building in Europe, Hagel said. The system in Europe is aimed mainly at defending against a missile threat from Iran; key elements of that system are already in place.

Tom Collina, research director at the Arms Control Association, applauded the decision to scrap the final phase of the European system, calling it an addition that “may not work against a threat that does not yet exist.”

Anticipating possible European unease, Hagel said U.S. commitment to defending Europe “remains ironclad.”

The decision to drop the planned expansion in Europe happens to coincide with President Obama’s announced intention to engage Russia in talks about further reducing each country’s nuclear weapons arsenal. The Russians have balked at that, saying Washington must first address their objections to U.S. missile defenses in Europe, which the Russians see as undermining the deterrent value of their nuclear arms.